Tom Heaton is predicting a bumpy road ahead for the Clarets but the club captain has promised, on behalf of the squad, that they’ll put their heart and soul in to their fight for Premier League survival.

The England international, recently restored to the starting XI, experienced relegation from the top flight in his second season at Turf Moor, despite keeping 10 clean sheets during the 2014/15 campaign.

Burnley are locked in a battle to preserve their status at this level, with a mini-league of seven teams currently cut adrift at the foot of the table, but Heaton is confident that they’ll have enough to pull through.

He said: “As players, playing for this football club, from here on in it’s not going to be straight forward with the situation that we’re in but if you can give everything you’ve got in every game we play in then win, lose or draw these fans will get behind us.

“If we give everything then the fans will support that. They’ve shown that over the years and that’s a great starting point for us.

“It’s going to be a bumpy road.

“I don’t think it’s going to be straightforward and everything’s going to be cupcakes and rainbows.

“But I think we’re going to need that heart, that desire, and maximum capacity from every single player during that 90 minutes and see where it takes us.

“We want to be staying in the Premier League.

“The situation we’re in at the minute is far from ideal, the results haven’t been great, we’ve conceded a lot of chances and a lot of goals. It’s been difficult.”

Sean Dyche’s side are contenders for the drop back down to the Championship, there’s no escaping that, with some bookmakers pricing them as short as 4/11 to fail in their bid to stay up.

However, with a healthy number of games still to play, Heaton won’t let the hierarchy cause any distraction just yet.

“There are a lot of big games coming up starting with Fulham,” he said.